undertone Review: A24’s chilling psychological horror turns silence, family, and familiarity into fear, resulting in one of the studio’s most unsettling films.
The majority of us thought the lockdown years were pretty exhausting, but director Ian Tuason made that isolation a nightmare—the good kind. His new film, Undertone, is currently the buzz at Sundance, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s a scary, sound-centered psychological horror that came from real-life anxiety and a house that could possibly be haunted now.
We’ve all been there—crashing at your parents’ place is not whatever you’re picturing it’s going to be. But for Tuason, it was a necessity so he could tend to his ailing parents.
In an interview with Variety, he shared his experiences of where he got the idea. While he was there, he began to consider what makes us feel safe —and what happens when you flip that on its head. The Exorcist concept (taking a “safe” daughter and making her scary) and applied it to his own life.
“My mind is stuck on ‘The Exorcist’, how it scared me so much when I was a kid.”
–He said
He wondered, What if my mom, who relies on me, starts speaking in a different voice? That dark thought transformed a simple podcast script into a feature film. He even shot it in his parents’ house to save money, but it came at a price. Living on your own horror set meant he never felt truly alone, and he said the house began feeling “haunted” well after the cameras stopped rolling.
Undertone is distinguished by its sound. The lead, Evy, is the host of a podcast, and the film plays with your ears. Tuason engineered the sound as if you are wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
“Do you know that weird silence level where you have no clue what’s happening in the room behind you?”
–He said
That’s precisely what he employs to frighten you. The film oddballed the sounds that Evy hears on her tapes and the sounds that are really in her hallway.
The hype around Undertone is deafening and it seems like the biggest names in horror are officially placing their bets on Tuason. That’s just the beginning: A24 has already acquired the film and scheduled a March 13 release.
The legends behind Blumhouse and Atomic Monster (the producers of Insidious and The Conjuring) are the ones who brought in Tuason to give the Paranormal Activity franchise a revamp. It’s a complete full circle moment for a guy who started out recording spooky noises in his childhood bedroom. If he can make a DIY movie at his parents’ house this scary, then we can’t wait to see what he does with a Hollywood budget and the keys to one of the biggest horror series in history.
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Undertone confirms the greatest horror has never been monsters or jump scares—it’s familiarity. By weaponizing a childhood home, a parent’s voice, and silence itself, Ian Tuason crafts a deeply personal and unsettling journey. Its choreography of sound is so perfect that it’s a movie to watch with headphones, each whisper feeling invasive and intimate.
With Sundance buzz, an A24 release, and major horror studios lining up to back Tuason’s next project, Undertone is not just a powerful first feature—it’s the introduction of a filmmaker who gets that the real horror is right at home.
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"Wake Up Dead Man review: Superb performances and a bold storyline, but this Knives Out follow-up lacks the complex twists of the originals." Learn more..!
The late 2025 launch of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is a high-stakes moment for one of the greatest IPs in modern moviemaking. Taking its place as the crown jewel amongst writer-director Rian Johnson’s body of work, the Knives Out franchise hasn’t simply breathed new life into the “whodunit” genre, it has transformed it into a tool for sharp social commentary, adapting the warm tropes of Agatha Christie to unpack the unsettling realities of 21st-century American class relations.
Coming off the sleeper theatrical success of Knives Out (2019) and the opulent, streaming-centered cultural moment of Glass Onion (2022), this third entry arrives with the weight of an inherently high-stakes legacy and the burdensome $450 million payday by Netflix.
Although the film has received overwhelmingly positive ratings—for example, it currently has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 96% to 100% in the wake of its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival—a close read of the reviews reveals a series struggling to find new energy in its satirical bite and its narrative mechanics.
The biggest departure in Wake Up Dead Man and the cause of most critical dissent is its bold structure. Johnson seeks to destabilize the standard whodunit paradigm not in the question of who did it, but in the mode of storytelling.
Everything has been turned on its head in what is being called a “subversive” and “harmful” marketing move: The franchise centerpiece, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), does not show up until the 45-minute mark. This decision in narrative style changes the whole DNA of the whodunit.
The movie devotes its whole first act to introducing the “victim,” Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), and the main protagonist/suspect, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor). The viewer is so deeply ensconced in the personalities of the Chimney Rock group, the history of the church and even the philosophical divide between Jud and Wicks that the arrival of law enforcement feels intrusive. The point of this construction is to give the mystery an emotional charge — the murder is not simply a brainteaser, but a tragedy involving characters the audience has come to know.
Reviewers said the first two reels of the film are slow. By the time the detective, Blanc, finally makes his appearance, most of the puzzles are already set on the table, so he’s not quite as active and important as he was in previous entries. He’s more like a “buddy cop” partner to Father Jud than the main engine of the narrative.
With Blanc arriving so late, the first act becomes a drama — nicely acted, but lacking the strong mystery “hook” that normally pulls audience in. That’s why they thought it was “far too long” to get truly started.
The movie borrows from a classic play, “the locked room” mystery, in which a murder takes place inside a church during a service and only the congregants could be suspects. The premise is entertaining — a seemingly impossible murder with no weapon or assailant in sight, inspired by old-school authors like John Dickson Carr.
Reviewers enjoyed the classic Christie-style tone, but many thought the answer was both a little too complex and still too easy to guess. Since the killer could be identified by the audience rather early on, the mystery was not very surprising and some considered the film to have lost the unpredictable energy that made the previous Knives Out films so exciting.
The film’s primary antagonist Monsignor Wicks is a gaunt, terrorized priest who wields religion as a tool of oppression, placing him among the more blatant political extremism and faith abuse in the stacked deck of the film. The movie even sets him up against the gentler Father Jud to illustrate the difference between poisonous institutions and real spirituality. But many reviewers found the satire too on the nose and “safe.”
The portrayal of Wicks is made so blatantly villainous that the satire feels toothless and uninspired, especially when compared to the cutting, dangerous satire of the earlier Knives Out films. It makes the criticism feel routine and less hard-hitting.
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Reviews say the movie is bigger than Knives Out but not as sharp as Glass Onion, and many feel it doesn’t have the tight, focused writing of the first film. It also plays it safe, leaning on well-worn mystery tropes rather than attempting to surprise or outsmart its audience.
Although the storyline can appear to be baffling at the beginning, the twists are quite predictable, which causes the mystery to be foreseeable and less emotional. Without a clever, mind blowing reveal, the ending just feels mundane.
Wake Up Dead Man is a “safe” triumph—a film that refines the form but loses the anarchic, punk-rock energy that made Knives Out a sensation. It’s a mystery that insists on being watched for its craft, if not one that will be viewed again and again as its antecedents have been.
Moving forward with the franchise, Johnson has a choice— he can continue his journey toward introspection and “cinema,” or he can come back to the tight, aggressive storytelling that made the original a searing experience. The “Knives” may still be out, but this time, they seem a little less sharp.
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Look back on Old Hollywood movies like Casablanca, Singin’ in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard that gained new audiences years later, via streaming and nostalgia.
Old Hollywood Movies have funny ways of vanishing, only to burst back into our lives unexpectedly. At one moment they are collecting dust in the vaults of studios, considered outdated by now and the next they are lighting up streaming services, film festivals and even TikTok feeds. So as you compare today’s blockbusters dominating the theaters and the awards seasons, you might be wondering which classic films you could still sink some quality time into and the answer might surprise you: plenty.
Thirty, 50 or even 80 years later, these films are as relevant as ever. Fueled by internet algorithms, cultural nostalgia, and storytelling that will never grow old, Old Hollywood has attracted a generation of new fans. This revival isn’t accidental — it’s a reminder that extraordinary film doesn’t go bad.
Below are five Old Hollywood masterpieces that gleamed once again, discovered anew through viral moments, unlikely reboots and well-earned cult devotion.
First on the list is Casablanca. Rick Blaine’s immortal “Here’s looking at you, kid,” delivered by Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund, still stings with the same muted pain decades later. Upon its release the film was a full-blown phenomenon making a fortune at the box office and receiving critical acclaim winning three Oscars, including Best Picture.
By 60s it was pretty much forgotten in the haze of New Hollywood’s grit. Revival struck in 1970 when a TV station looped it endlessly out of a programming error. Viewers tuned in obsessively, and it became appointment TV. By the ’80s home video cemented its legend.
And now, Algorithms from Netflix are now mass-marketing it to Millennials on romantic playlists —and memes are flooding social media. Love, sacrifice and moral uncertainty are its themes, which ring true in our divided world demonstrating that black-and-white romance never dies.
It’s Wonderful Life (1946) next in the list of Old Hollywood Movies. George Bailey, played by James Stewart, is a suicidal man who is shown the meaning of life by an angel in Frank Capra’s charming, sentimental film.
They wagged their heads at it in Hollywood. In 1974, it was made available to television stations as a non-commercial holiday message when the copyright expired. Families weeping over Zuzu’s petals as they are glued to screens. It was a Christmas tradition by 1990 and earned millions of rerun dollars.
Gen Z found it on Prime Video in lockdowns, leading to TikTok’s with millions of views for its mental health message. Stewart at his most nakedly vulnerable is like therapy — timeless in troublous times.
The Wizard of Oz (1939), Judy Garland’s Dorothy skipping along the yellow brick road made the movie a Technicolor box-office sensation and won two Academy Awards. But after World War II, it quietly dropped out of sight — until 1956, when annual broadcasts on CBS television brought it back into living rooms and made it a beloved ritual.
Children like Steven Spielberg were obsessed with ruby slippers, giving rise to a ritual. MGM’s new color technology was dazzling on small screens, popularizing “Over the Rainbow” in pop culture. Revivals went crazy in the ’70s with album sales and ’80s VHS booms.
Now, it’s on HBO Max for nostalgic eyeballs, as Pink Floyd shows up on YouTube for Dark Side of the Moon sync-ups.
Sunset Boulevard (1950) remains a quintessential post-1950 film noir Directed by Billy Wilder, it delves into Hollywood’s seedy underbelly with a story of a has-been and obsession.
The plot is a flashback narrated by struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), who is on the run from repo men and takes refuge in the decaying mansion of reclusive silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). She retains him to revise her script for a comeback, resulting in a demented romance in the midst of her view of stardom, her faithful butler Max (Erich von Stroheim) supporting her globe. It comes to a tragic end in her Sunset Boulevard home, with a jibe at the transitory character of fame.
Retro for cancel-culture darlings, streaming-era stars. On TCM and YouTube, it is trending with film students analyzing the toxicity of the industry — Swanson’s mania is still very much relevant.
Singin’ In the Rain (1952) – Gene Kelly’s high spirited musical parody of the shift to talking movies. It was a modest success at the time, but then lay dormant until the 1960s, when it was voted top musical by the American Film Institute. Home video in the 80’s made “Good Morning” dances a party staple. Disney’s stage version and Baz Luhrmann references kept the flame.
Post-2000, TikTok challenges featuring Kelly’s rain-soaked twirl through the air explode yearly — more than 500 million views. Its optimism breaks intuitive doom-scrolling, who doesn’t want that puddle-jumping glee?
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What these Old Hollywood Movies loudly, unapologetically declare is that great cinema doesn’t grow old, it hibernates. When the world finally gets around to their feeling, thinking, or magical selves, they rouse themselves up, stronger than ever. None revives feel quite as nostalgic as rediscovery, from moral courage in Casablanca to candid talk of mental health in It’s a Wonderful Life, to unadulterated cinematic bliss in Singin’ in the Rain.
None of those can save a movie; they merely returned these movies to the people who were most desperate for them. These classic gems make itself a silent yet painful reminder that like us, some stories never truly end or they may never be done with us in the first place in a world that is obsessed with the new.
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